Canadian Growth Seen Slipping Behind U.S. on Oil Slump

Canada and the U.S. usually pace each other fairly closely in economic growth, but that’s likely to change this year as the Canadian economy loses traction in a stretch of lower oil prices.

That was a key message from some of Canada’s senior private-sector economists at the Economic Club of Toronto’s annual forecast breakfast earlier Tuesday.

If Canada’s economy records real gross domestic product growth in the vicinity of 2.2%, the lower end of the economists’ forecasts, and the U.S. achieves growth in the 3% range, the divergence between the countries could reach levels not seen since 2003, said Doug Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets.